The Portland Timbers Spend Some Money: Preliminary, Speculative Thoughts on Brian Fernandez

That said, some very successful people do it...

Yeah, yeah, I know I said I’d do it in a thread, but I just want to blah, blah, blah about the Portland Timbers signing Brian Fernandez for (reportedly) $10 million (and some as yet unrecorded length of time), and without wrestling my many thoughts into 280-character nuggets – even if it means fewer people will read it. Regardless of how the method of delivery, this signing contains a lot within it.

First, I don’t expect anything from any given player based on a resume – something that’s more significant with Fernandez, who has scored enough, and in enough places to make him look like a good bet to succeed in MLS. Snippets of his finer moments and his resume mean nothing: he’ll set his own bar with how he plays for Portland (Necaxa is over) in MLS.

Just to note it (largely because it’s basically impossible to avoid), Fernandez’s signing gives long-suffering Lucas Melano his first real chance to skulk away from serving as permanent cautionary tale in Timbers history. I wouldn’t count on it, obviously – not given a player who has performed well in more talent-laden leagues – but all kinds of things could trip up Fernandez, e.g., failing to adjust to the travel, or a new country/culture; he could just be a massive asshole that poisons the locker room (and I close with this).

Whatever kind of player the Timbers got, paying that much for a player says plenty about the front office’s perception of what it takes to compete in Major League Soccer – and probably starting in 2018. On that level, Fernandez’s signing stands out on two levels for me. First – and this was why I obsessed so much on the length of his contract – his age (24) suggests they didn’t buy him to flip him; unlike what, say, Atlanta did with Miguel Almiron, Fernandez doesn’t look like an investment signing, a young, promising buck the team would play, fatten up a little (metaphorically), and sell to a richer club in a bigger league. To be clear, my relentless “just the results, ma’am” approach leaves me close to functionally ignorant of the international transfer market, but, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me it’s too late to develop a player…well, I’d probably still be doing this shit for free, only with a lot more money in my bank account. Second, and on the most basic level, this signing still strikes me as a significant sunk cost, a kind of all-in gamble on Fernandez being “the guy” who has to produce real numbers. Even though they have delivered like beautiful motherfuckers, I’d argue that not even Diego Valeri nor Sebastian Blanco came in with that much expectation.

My last practical comment (i.e., as pertains to stuff on the field) pulls on the thread in the paragraph above about player development – the development of Jeremy Ebobisse, specifically. Over the Timbers’ successful, late run of games, they’ve lined up in a “flexing” 4-4-2 (this one; also, I haven’t mentioned this, but one of the things I like most about Giovanni Savarese is that I can make sense of his choices). When I’ve tentatively raised the issue of who Fernandez replaces in that eleven, I get the feeling people think I’m worrying about nothing – something that’s definitely possible. When I test the theory by subtraction, it works out like this: except when they’re resting, I don’t see Valeri or Blanco making way; next, if you want to leave Ebobisse out there, the only player(s) I can see making way are Andres Flores (or, to float a weird one; Cristhian Paredes, and having Diego Chara run the midfield). Because I can’t see that parenthetical theory holding up, and because I worry about the balance between the defense and the attack, I can’t see Ebobisse staying on the field. From a pure results perspective, so long as Fernandez is better than Ebobisse…I mean, who gives a shit so long as the 3s and 1s stack up, right?

Basically, I’ve seen people list Portland’s bolstered attacking assets as if they can all get on the field at once (as done in this article), and I see no way in hell that works in a way that doesn’t hang the defense out to dry. As such, choices must be made – by the coaching staff today and, if he winds up picking his nose on the bench, Jeremy Ebobisse tomorrow (e.g., whether or not he moves on).

That’s all I’ve got on the practical, game-day stuff, but I wanted to close on the behavior issues. For what it’s worth, nothing in Fernandez’s history gives me pause – not the spitting (he was pissed and…it’s just spit), not the blow (sorry, I mean cocaine), etc. I take a generally forgiving attitude toward human frailty and, between high school and college, a professional athlete is the last person I expect to be a saint (hence the unique charm of Valeri and Zarek Valentin). That’s not to say I’d never draw the line (e.g., sexual assault immediately transports one's body to the wrong side of that line), but Fernandez comes with all that washed away as far as I’m concerned. (Also, for clarity’s sake, if a player can snort a sandwich bag full of blow and still perform on the field, I’m as likely to be impressed by his constitution.)

At any rate, that’s where I am on the new guy. After all that cold-blooded wait-and-see judgment, I may as well admit it: I hope Fernandez exceeds expectations high enough to make it easy to make peace with whatever collateral damage his success leaves behind.